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Human Rights Watch
Civilians at Risk as Large-Scale Fighting Looms in Darfur
After a months-long, uneasy détente between Sudan’s two warring parties, hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the city of El Fasher in Darfur are in the crosshairs.
In the past few days, several villages near El Fasher appear to have been burned to the ground. People in one camp for internally displaced people have reportedly been killed by shelling and in clashes. Alarming reports of mass mobilization of fighters on both sides raise concerns that fighting in one of Darfur’s most populated cities could lead to atrocities against civilians.
El Fasher, the only capital in Darfur not controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is home to 2 million people, half a million displaced by hunger and war from other parts of Darfur including over the last year.
A patchwork of armed actors, including the Darfur Joint Protection Forces, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the RSF control different parts of the El Fasher area. Tense calm alternating with episodic fighting has prevailed for months.
Over the last two weeks, there have been reports of an uptick in civilian casualties, with many killed and injured in both RSF & Arab militia attacks on non-Arab villages west of El Fasher as well as during fighting between these forces and SAF and allied forces, including shelling and bombing. In February, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors without Borders) warned of catastrophic levels of malnutrition among children in the city. Further fighting risks entirely cutting off already malnourished displaced people from critical care.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said reports of an imminent attack raised the “risk of further violations and abuses against civilians.” The United States special envoy for Sudan called “on the RSF to end the siege” and urged “them, the SAF and its aligned fighters to respect IHL [international humanitarian law] and protect civilians.”
For almost a year, the RSF and allied groups have targeted the ethnic Massalit people of West Darfur with summary executions, sexual violence, and massive destruction of property, while also abusing people in other areas under their control, most recently in Al Gezira state. The SAF have reportedly also arrested, tortured, and extrajudicially killed Darfuris. All warring parties have carried out indiscriminate attacks in populated areas.
The risk of atrocities against El Fasher’s non-Arab civilians is all too clear.
The UN Security Council meeting tomorrow on Sudan should urgently ask the secretary-general to consider what kinds of measures the UN can adopt to better protect Sudan’s civilians. The African Union’s Peace and Security Council should warn against further attacks on civilians, call for respect for the UN arms embargo on Darfur, and make clear support for international investigations. Influential governments should make clear warring parties will face consequences for violating the laws of war. Without such basic steps, global leaders’ condemnations this week on the devastating one-year anniversary of the conflict will ring even more hollow.
Landmark Court Ruling Upholds Right to Healthy Environment
Last month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Peruvian government responsible for violating the right to a healthy environment, among other rights, of residents of La Oroya, a town exposed to toxic pollution from a mine and smelter complex, the first ruling of its kind before the Court. The town is so polluted that one study by Peru’s Ministry of Health in 2005 found that 99.9 percent of children under six years old who were tested had high lead levels in their blood.
The families who initiated the case included 80 residents, 57 of which were children, who had been exposed to extreme levels of toxic lead and other metals. The court found that the government was responsible for allowing serious health harms caused by mining and smelting, particularly in children, and the deaths of two residents, one of whom was 17 years old. It also found that the affected families did not receive adequate health care and ruled that the government had failed to investigate harassment and threats against victims who had publicly denounced the contamination.
The court ordered Peru to provide free health care for victims; pay compensation for the harms they experienced; assess and clean up the contaminated areas; and continue to monitor air, ground, and water quality, among other measures.
In its ruling, the court referred to general guidance issued by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child last year, particularly on the rights of children affected by environmental crises.
Unfortunately, the dire health impacts faced by people in La Oroya are not unique. In Kabwe, Zambia, a former lead and zinc mine has left a similarly toxic legacy, and nearby residents continue to suffer disastrous health complications from lead exposure. A Human Rights Watch investigation exposed the harmful impacts of lead contamination on children’s rights to health, information, and education. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment has described both La Oroya and Kabwe as “sacrifice zones”: areas that are among the most polluted and hazardous on earth, leading to a systematic violation of human rights.
Peru, where illegal mining is widespread and where there is a high rate of conflicts between communities and mining companies over alleged pollution, should not only comply with this ruling, but also better protect the right to a healthy environment throughout the country.
Ahead of Earth Day next week, this ruling should serve as a warning to governments of other such pollution hotspots where progress continues to stall. All governments should view it as a signal of the increasing global urgency, now reflected in international law, of preventing the “ongoing toxification” of people and the planet.
Armenia Strengthens Domestic Violence Law
Armenia’s parliament adopted amendments strengthening the country’s domestic violence law. The legislation was adopted last week as postwar Armenia both struggles to secure its border with neighboring Azerbaijan and deepen its relations with the European Union.
Armenia’s 2017 domestic violence law was an important first step, but its accountability provisions were inadequate and protective measures were deeply flawed. The law’s title, which included “restoring family harmony,” set the tone.
The amendments remove the reference to “family harmony” and add additional acts of physical, sexual, psychological, and economic violence that can be considered domestic violence. These include, among others, forced medical and psychiatric interventions, hindering access to medical care, virginity testing, prohibiting or hindering contacts with relatives and friends, and various forms of exercising control over a partner. The amendments also criminalize stalking as a standalone crime.
Armenia’s criminal code doesn’t list domestic violence as a standalone offence, but it does specify that if the perpetrators of certain crimes are close relatives, this can be an aggravating factor. The amendments provide that partners and former partners (who are not deemed relatives) are now also included as perpetrators who can be charged with this aggravating factor. The amendments also specify that causing a child to witness domestic violence is tantamount to an act of violence.
The amendments set a minimum time period for urgent intervention measures – which are a step short of court-issued protective orders – and extend the time period for protective orders. Both measures allow police to force an abuser from the home or restrict them from communicating with a victim.
Finally, the amendments specify that survivors have priority access to free healthcare services to address conditions caused by domestic violence and that shelters must be accessible to people with disabilities.
Authorities noted a doubling in the number of criminal investigations into domestic violence: 1,848 investigations in 2023 compared with 960 in 2022. They partially attributed this to a new methodology of compiling statistics and an increased reporting rate, rather than an increase in violence.
Much needs to be done in Armenia to protect women and girls from domestic violence. For example, in some cases, courts invalidate police urgent intervention orders. And Armenia has yet to ratify the Council of Europe’s convention on preventing domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. Meanwhile, the Armenian government should continue promoting zero tolerance on domestic violence and ensure accountability of perpetrators.
UN Plastics Treaty Should Mandate Protection of Human Rights and Health
Next week in Ottawa, countries will reconvene to continue negotiations on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. A revised draft of the treaty published by the United Nations Environment Programme contains certain positive measures to reduce plastic production. However, it lacks the necessary provisions to protect human rights and health from the impacts of plastic pollution, especially for frontline communities and those who are most vulnerable.
The draft proposes options to address the full life cycle of plastics, from reducing production to eliminating the use of the most hazardous chemicals to improve plastic safety. However, it promotes higher recycling rates to increase producer responsibility without accounting for the human rights and health harm associated with recycling. It also overlooks a significant element of plastic production: fossil fuels. Ninety-nine percent of plastics are made from fossil fuels, which are also the primary driver of the climate crisis.
January 25, 2024 US: Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’Dire Health Crisis From Government Failure to Rein in Fossil Fuels
In January, a Human Rights Watch report found that communities living alongside fossil fuel and petrochemical operations, including those producing the feedstocks for plastics, in Louisiana, United States, suffer elevated risks and rates of severe health harm, including cancer, respiratory ailments, and maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harm. This area has come to be known as “Cancer Alley” due to parts of it bearing the highest risks of cancer from industrial air pollution in the country. In Cancer Alley, health harm from fossil fuel operations disproportionally impacts Black residents.
September 21, 2022 Turkey: Plastic Recycling Harms Health, EnvironmentLax Monitoring, Enforcement Creates Serious Rights Risks
Previously, Human Rights Watch documented the harmful impacts of plastic recycling in Turkey, where people living near recycling facilities suffer respiratory and skin ailments from pollutants and toxins emitted from plastic recycling. The treaty should not promote higher recycling rates without outlining measures to mitigate human rights and health impacts linked to recycling.
Governments are obligated under international human rights law to respect, protect, and fulfill all human rights, including the rights to health and to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The plastics treaty should uphold existing obligations and commitments, including by phasing out fossil fuels, to address the climate crisis.
German Chancellor’s Trip to China a Wasted Opportunity
Germany's economy is very dependent on China, so expectations were low that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would place human rights concerns prominently on the agenda of his April 13-16 trip to China. But his apparent unwillingness to publicly say the words “human rights” was deeply disappointing.
The Chinese government’s long-egregious human rights record has become dramatically more repressive since Xi Jinping took power in 2013. Thousands of critics of the government are behind bars. The government oppresses and surveils the Tibetan and Uyghur populations and for years has actively suppressed their language, culture, and religion. In recent years, Beijing has deprived the people of Hong Kong’s fundamental freedoms.
Scholz’s three days in China were longer than any of his previous trips since taking office. He came with a huge entourage, consisting of the heads of the largest and most renowned German companies, as well as federal ministers, state secretaries, and the media. He spoke for hours with Xi, campaigned for freer trade for German industries, and sought Chinese support on key foreign policy issues, including over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He assured journalists that he had addressed "all the difficult issues," but did not once mention “human rights.”
Sino-German relations are complicated. But even evaluated against its own metrics, the new German China Strategy, the German chancellor did not achieve its aims. The strategy recognizes China as a security threat and geopolitical competitor from which Germany should “de-risk,” and that the two countries’ relations should be rules-based and values-driven. This broadened Sino-German relations from their traditional focus on improving market access for German industries to a more multifaceted one.
But sadly, the German China Strategy proved to be nothing but hollow words. Germany’s experience with Vladimir Putin’s Russia should have made it clear that abusive governments make unreliable trade partners. Instead of steering Sino-German relations on a new course consistent with its own strategy by publicly promoting respect for human rights, Scholz defaulted to the well-worn path that will not further Germany’s long-term interests nor the basic human rights of the people in China.
Explosive Weapons’ Dire Impact on Cultural Heritage
(Oslo, April 18, 2024) – The bombing and shelling of cities and towns during armed conflict has devastating consequences for cultural heritage and civilians, Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic said in a report released today. Minimizing this harm should be addressed at the first meeting of countries endorsing the 2022 Political Declaration on the Protection of Civilians from the Use of Explosive Weapons, which will be held in Oslo, Norway from April 22-24, 2024.
The 80-page report, “Destroying Cultural Heritage: Explosive Weapons’ Effects in Armed Conflict and Measures to Improve Protection,” details both the immediate and long-term harm from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas on cultural heritage, such as historic buildings and houses of worship, museums and archives, public squares, and performance centers. It shows that the Declaration on explosive weapons could serve as a valuable tool for addressing the problem.
April 18, 2024 Destroying Cultural Heritage“Governments should recognize that using explosive weapons in populated areas endangers cultural heritage as well as the people who cherish it,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms adviser at Human Rights Watch and a lecturer on law at the Harvard Clinic. “To preserve this heritage for future generations, parties to armed conflicts should abide by the 2022 Political Declaration and refrain from bombing and shelling populated urban areas.”
When used in populated areas, explosive weapons, such as aerial bombs, artillery projectiles, rockets, and missiles, kill and injure civilians and destroy civilian objects at the time of attack. These weapons also have long-term indirect, or “reverberating,” effects that aggravate civilian suffering. By harming cultural heritage, the weapons erase history, undermine community identity and unity, and have financial costs.
Play VideoHuman Rights Watch and the Harvard Clinic interviewed 17 experts and affected civilians, reviewed primary and secondary sources, and conducted legal analysis.
They examined Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine to illustrate the vulnerability of cultural heritage to explosive weapons in populated areas. They surveyed five examples – including local museums and archives, cultural sites in urban centers, and places of worship – that highlight the frequency, diversity, and gravity of the effects of explosive weapons on cultural heritage, and why these effects matter to the civilian population.
The researchers also drew on examples from other armed conflicts, notably Gaza and Yemen, to differentiate and elaborate on the direct and indirect harm to places and people that this method of war causes.
“The use of explosive weapons causes heartbreaking loss to sites and objects that may be treasured locally or globally,” Docherty said. “The damage also strikes at the heart of a nation’s people, who expect to pass their cultural heritage from one generation to the next.”
Since November 18, 2022, 86 countries have endorsed the Declaration, which sets standards for preventing and remediating the effects of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Countries should interpret the Declaration and put it into practice to maximize the protection of cultural heritage, Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Clinic said. In addition to avoiding the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, countries should, for example, train soldiers to recognize and understand the significance of local cultural heritage, collect and share data related to cultural heritage damage, and allow preservation experts immediate access to affected sites.
By taking such steps, parties to armed conflicts can bolster safeguards for cultural heritage laid out in existing international law. In practice, these steps can better protect both cultural heritage and civilians.
“Countries should join the Declaration on explosive weapons and use it to maximize its humanitarian impact,” Docherty said. “By implementing its protections for cultural heritage, countries will also benefit civilians and hopefully reduce the long-term horrors of war.”
West Bank: Israel Responsible for Rising Settler Violence
(Jerusalem) – The Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank that have displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely uprooted at least 7 communities since October 7, 2023, Human Rights Watch said today.
Israeli settlers have assaulted, tortured, and committed sexual violence against Palestinians, stolen their belongings and livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently, and destroyed their homes and schools under the cover of the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. Many Palestinians, including entire communities, have fled their homes and lands. The military has not assured displaced residents that it will protect their security or allow them to return, forcing them to live in precarious conditions elsewhere.
“Settlers and soldiers have displaced entire Palestinian communities, destroying every home, with the apparent backing of higher Israeli authorities,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring.”
Human Rights Watch investigated attacks that forcibly displaced all residents of Khirbet Zanuta and Khirbet al-Ratheem south of Hebron, al-Qanub east of Hebron, and Ein al-Rashash and Wadi al-Seeq, east of Ramallah, in October and November 2023. The evidence shows that armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, repeatedly cut off road access and raided Palestinian communities, detained, assaulted, and tortured residents, chased them out of their homes and off their lands at gunpoint or coerced them to leave with death threats, and blocked them from taking their belongings.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 27 witnesses of the attacks, and viewed videos that residents filmed, showing harassment by men in Israeli military uniforms carrying M16 assault rifles. As of April 16, the Israel Defense Forces did not reply to questions Human Rights Watch sent by email on April 7.
Settler attacks on Palestinians increased in 2023 to their highest level since the UN began recording this data in 2006. This was the case even before the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 that killed about 1,100 people inside Israel.
Following October 7, the Israeli military called up 5,500 settlers who are Israeli army reservists, including some with criminal records of violence against Palestinians, and assigned them to West Bank “regional defense” battalions. The authorities distributed 7,000 guns to battalion members and others, including “civilian security squads” established in settlements, according to Haaretz, and Israeli rights groups. Media reported that settlers left leaflets and sent threats on social media to Palestinians after October 7, such as warnings to “flee to Jordan” or be “exterminate[d],” and that “the day of revenge is coming.”
The UN has recorded more than 700 settler attacks between October 7 and April 3, with soldiers in uniform present in nearly half of the attacks. Attacks since October 7 have displaced over 1,200 people, including 600 children, from rural herding communities. At least 17 Palestinians were killed and 400 wounded, while Palestinians have killed 7 settlers in the West Bank since October 7, the UN reported.
On April 12, the body of a 14-year-old Israeli boy was found after he had disappeared from the settlement outpost of Malachei Hashalom. Since then, settlers have attacked at least 17 Palestinian villages and communities in the West Bank, according to OCHA. Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, reported that four Palestinians, including a 16-year-old boy, have been killed in these incidents, and that houses and vehicles were set on fire, and livestock killed.
None of those evicted from the five communities investigated have been able to return, Human Rights Watch found. The Israeli military either rejected or did not answer requests to allow residents to return, leaving Palestinians without protection from the same armed settlers and soldiers who threatened to kill them if they returned. One family with seven children, forced to flee on foot from al-Qanub, now lives in a small cinderblock storeroom with no money to pay the rent.
Haqel: In Defense of Human Rights, an Israeli human rights organization, petitioned the Israeli High Court to instruct the army to protect and allow six displaced communities to return, including Khirbet Zanuta, but the Israeli state attorney’s February 20 response claimed that no forced displacement occurred, and that Palestinians had left voluntarily due to herding and agricultural problems, according to Haqel. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 1.
The displaced residents raised sheep. Some said that Israeli attackers stole vehicles, cash, and household appliances, as well as sheep and fodder that families had bought on credit and now cannot repay. Other families escaped with their flocks but had to build new shelters and have nowhere to graze them.
Settlers have subsequently been grazing their own sheep on the communities’ lands, according to rights groups. The Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that as of mid-March, settlers had taken over 4,000 dunams (about 988 acres) of Palestinian grazing lands since October 7.
Repeated settler attacks, often at night, have caused fear and mental health harm. Children and their parents said children have had nightmares and difficulty concentrating. The attacks destroyed schools in two of the five communities. Most children were unable to go to school for a month or longer after being displaced.
The Israeli police have law-enforcement jurisdiction over settlers, while the army has jurisdiction over Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. After October 7, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir instructed police not to enforce the law against violent settlers, an Israeli investigative journalist reported. Police denied the report, though Ben-Gvir did not. The vast majority of Palestinian complaints against settlers and the Israeli military do not result in indictments, based on official data compiled by Yesh Din.
After October 7, the National Security Ministry distributed thousands of guns, including to settlers. In December, the Attorney General’s Office stated in the Knesset that they had found the Ministry had unlawfully approved 14,000 firearms permits.
Countries including the United States, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have licensed exports of weapons, including assault rifles and ammunition, to Israel. The US has approved more than 100 weapons transfers to Israel since October 7, and exported 8,000 military rifles and 43,000 handguns in 2023, before pausing a shipment of 24,000 assault rifles in December over concerns about settler attacks. It is “almost a certainty” that settlers are using US-made guns, a former US State Department official said.
Since December, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France announced visa policies that barred some violent settlers from entry. The US and UK imposed financial sanctions on a total of eight settlers and two settlement outposts. EU sanctions are still being discussed, due to staunch reluctance by the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Forcible transfer or deportation and the extensive destruction and appropriation of property in occupied territory are war crimes. Israeli authorities’ systematic oppression of and inhumane acts against Palestinians, including war crimes, committed with the intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians, amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
Governments should suspend military support to Israel, given the risk of complicity in abuses. They should also review and possibly suspend bilateral agreements, such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and ban trade with settlements in the occupied territories. The UK should immediately withdraw the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, which restricts public bodies in the UK from deciding not to do business with companies’ operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The US, the EU, UK, and other countries should take action to ensure accountability for those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including criminal investigations and prosecutions under universal jurisdiction and at the International Criminal Court. This should include those responsible under command responsibility for failures to prevent or punish crimes by those in their chain of command.
In addition, they should consider sanctions on those responsible for ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinian communities or for the prevention of displaced Palestinians from returning to their lands, until those subject to sanctions end the attacks and ensure the displaced Palestinians can return, Human Rights Watch said.
“Palestinian children have seen their families brutalized, and their homes and schools destroyed, and the Israeli authorities are ultimately to blame,” Van Esveld said. “Senior state officials are fueling or failing to prevent these attacks, and Israel’s allies are not doing enough to stop that.”
Israeli Attacks Investigated*** Names have been changed for people’s protection.
Al-QanubSettler attacks forced the residents of al-Qanub, 10 kilometers east of the town of Sa’ir, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, to flee on the evening of October 9. The community of about 40 people have been unable to return.
From October 7 to 9, ten to twelve settlers in civilian clothes, armed with handguns and assault rifles, piled up stones each day to block the only road to al-Qanub, which links it to the town of Sa’ir, said Salma, a 29-year-old resident who fled with her husband, Salim, and their seven children.
At 4:30 p.m. on October 9, dozens of armed settlers arrived. “Some went to [get] the sheep, and nine of them came to us,” Salim said. “They had guns and knives.” Settlers ordered them to leave within an hour or they would be killed, and one man said he would “cut our throats, and pointed at us, including our kids.”
Click to expand Image One of the homes destroyed in al- Qanub, a Palestinian community in the southern West Bank, after all residents fled from armed settlers on October 9, 2023. © 2023 PrivateDozens of men, with dogs, stole and led the 200 sheep that Salim and his father owned toward a settlement outpost, Salim said. He and several neighbors ran toward them, but “that seemed to trigger [the settlers].” His father feared they would open fire and warned the residents to leave. The men, and women and children fled in different groups: “I told my wife to take the kids and run.”
Salma carried her 8-month-old boy and walked with her other children through rocky terrain for more than five hours in the dark, until 10 p.m., to reach her parents’ home, she said.
Salim, 35, his father, 75, and his children were all born in al-Qanub. “All our life was there,” he said. He is 18,000 shekels (about US$4,800) in debt for sheep fodder that settlers stole, he said. The family is living in a windowless, cinderblock storeroom in a nearby town, with no income to pay the rent.
Settlers from an outpost 400 meters away west of al-Qanub, began harassing residents five years ago, Salim said. It appears the settlers came from the outpost of Pnei Kedem North. Settlers prevented residents from grazing their sheep, and “cut the electricity, and three months ago they cut the water. They even took the pipes.” In December 2021, settlers set dogs on two brothers in al-Qanub and hit one brother with an all-terrain vehicle, and in February 2022, settlers attacked the brothers’ father, 76, fracturing two of his fingers and his skull, the rights group B’Tselem reported.
Wadi al-SeeqAttacks involving armed settlers in civilian clothes and an Israel Defense Forces unit displaced all 30 families – about 180 people, including 90 children – from Wadi al-Seeq, northeast of Ramallah, on October 12, based on residents’ and human rights groups’ accounts, as well as Israeli news reports.
Beginning on October 7, settlers gathered daily at the entrance of the road that leads to the community. At 8 p.m. on October 11, a group of 8 to 10 men in military uniforms, armed with M16s and some wearing masks, arrived in two trucks, said 46-year-old Abu Hasan.
The uniformed men first entered the tents belonging to Abu Nayef and his sons, destroyed and stole the family’s belongings, then searched other people’s tents until around 3 a.m., Abu Hasan said.
Later that morning, a prominent local settler, armed and wearing civilian clothes, led a group of armed men wearing military uniforms without name tags who had arrived in civilian cars in blocking an access road, while a military vehicle and two police patrol vehicles were stationed nearby, four residents said.
Four vehicles with soldiers, some of whom residents recognized as settlers from prior attacks, then entered Wadi al-Seeq, residents said. The soldiers took residents’ phones, car keys, and IDs, hit people, and entered tents where women and children were taking cover, and threw belongings on the ground, said 30-year-old Marwan M.
The attackers said they would shoot residents if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Bashar said: “They said, you can’t take anything with you, and even the cars were forbidden.” About 30 people were wounded in the attack, according to news reports.
Soldiers entered Reem R.’s tent, shoved her and her children, and took their phones, she said. “One man in uniform kicked me in the back of my neck. They said, ‘Go to the valley, and if you come back, we will kill you.’” As she was fleeing, Reem saw her 20-year-old son, who has a congenital bone condition and a physical disability, lying on the ground, with a settler “stomping on his back,” she said. The women and children, including two with physical disabilities, fled to a cave, where they sheltered for eight hours without food or water, or their phones, until around 8 p.m., then walked toward the town of Taybeh, Reem said.
Click to expand Image Bruising on one of the men attacked by settlers and active-duty soldiers, in Wadi al-Seeq on October 12, 2023. The man was hospitalized for his injuries. © 2023 PrivateMeanwhile, soldiers forced Marwan M., Abu Hasan, and a third man, Nadim N., onto the ground, bound them, and hit, kicked, and beat them with their gun butts, they said. Another group of soldiers arrived and left, and a civilian vehicle arrived with men in military uniforms. Soldiers dragged the three men to a sheep pen, blindfolded and stripped them to their underwear, replaced the zip-tie on Abu Hasan’s wrists with painful metal wire, and for more than two hours, beat and kicked the men in the head and face. Nadim N. was burned with cigarettes. Marwan M. lost consciousness, he said. The attackers posted images of the men online.
“They took turns beating us, over and over, with threats like, ‘When you die your wife won’t be able to feed your children’,” Abu Hasan said. One man urinated on him, and another kicked him in the chest, stomach, and genitals. “I was screaming in pain. After that he brought a broom handle, jumped on my back, hit me with it and tried to shove it in my anus.”
Abu Hasan said the attackers stole three phones and 2,700 shekels (about US$700) in cash from the three men, and other belongings. In the evening, an Israeli military medic arrived with other soldiers. Marwan M. said, “they gave me glucose, and apologized. We told them how they stole our cars, phones, money, everything, and insisted that they get our things back, but they didn’t respond [to our requests].” He and Abu Hasan were hospitalized.
About five days later, Israeli authorities in two police cars escorted some residents back for two hours to retrieve their belongings, Reem R. said. Her household’s mattresses, blankets, clothes, electrical equipment, refrigerator, car trailer, 250 chickens, and 35,000 shekels (about US$9,400) worth of sheep fodder that was bought on credit, were missing, she said. Other residents’ documents, including birth and marriage certificates, were burned or missing, and two cars, water tanks, donkeys, chickens, and 13 sheep had been stolen, Abu Bashar said. Their homes had been destroyed.
Residents said they filed a complaint at the police station in the Binyamin settlement but have heard nothing since. The military asked two men to submit complaints.
The soldiers involved in the attack were part of the military’s Desert Frontier unit, which recruits residents of settlement outposts, including some settlers with criminal records, Haaretz reported. The military dismissed the commander in October in response to reports about the attack, and in December, dismissed five combat soldiers and froze the unit’s operations following additional violent incidents, Haaretz reported. Human Rights Watch is not aware of anyone having been prosecuted in relation to the events.
In December, the Israeli military filed an order barring the settler leader from most of the West Bank, for three months. He appealed the order. The US sanctioned him in March.
Reem R. and her family are sheltering in a tent on the outskirts of Taybeh. Her children were out of school for more than two months. The school in Wadi al-Seeq, which opened in 2017 and had over 100 students in grades 1 through 8, including children from neighboring communities, was destroyed after the attack.
The families were originally displaced during the 1948 war from what is now Israel. Between 2010 and 2023, the Israeli military issued demolition orders for 110 structures in the community, including the school, for lacking building permits, which are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain.
Settlers began herding sheep on the community’s lands and harassing residents in February 2023. On August 3, settlers beat children and youth with sticks and tried to steal their sheep, residents said. The army arrested three men who prevented the theft and detained 35-year-old Karim K. on charges of assault and resisting arrest, which his uncle said were bogus. He was released in February on bail and a third-party guarantee.
Khirbet al-RatheemBetween October 14 and 23, the entire community of about 50 people in Khirbet al-Ratheem, in the southern West Bank, was displaced due to attacks by armed men in military uniforms whom community residents recognized as settlers from previous attacks, accompanied by other soldiers whom residents did not recognize.
Settlers began to harass Khirbet al-Ratheem in 2021, destroying crops and raiding homes at night, former residents said.
On October 7, 2023, soldiers arrived and warned the community not to leave their homes or graze their sheep and blocked all the roads. On October 8, settlers attacked the home of 50-year-old Ghassan G., his 44-year-old wife Farah, and their three children under the age of 18; destroyed two water cisterns; and smashed their solar panels with stones.
At 10 p.m. on October 12, five masked, armed men in military uniforms forced three nearby households into Ghassan’s tent, dragging Ghassan’s elderly father, who had difficulty walking, and pointing an M16 at his head, Farah said. One man told them, “You have 24 hours to leave, [or] we will kill you and take your sheep,” Ghassan said. The attackers punctured their water tanks and cut their gas and water pipes. Ghassan called a humanitarian agency and the nearby municipality of al-Samu’a to help them evacuate but was told it was not possible to coordinate with the Israeli military, he said.
On the night of October 13, masked and armed soldiers, whom a family member identified by their voices as “settlers we’re used to,” entered the family home again, threatened them and demanded their phones. The family member, who hid her phone and video camera, showed Human Rights Watch videos of prior settler attacks.
As Ghassan’s extended family were leaving on October 14, settlers returned and forced them face-down on the ground, beating, kicking, and threatening to kill them, family members said. The family escaped to the town of al-Samu’a, 15 kilometers away, with 220 sheep, a few solar panels, appliances, and mattresses. A neighbor later filmed a settler bulldozing their home.
Ghassan had to build a sheep shelter on the outskirts of al-Samu’a, at a cost of 50,000 shekels (about US $13,400), and buy fodder. Previously, the sheep had grazed on 30 dunams (about 7 acres) of land.
The extended family of 76-year-old Abu A. and his wife, Lana, who have five children under the age of 18 along with adult children and their families, lived nearby. On October 8 or 9, men Abu A. recognized as settlers from an outpost of the Asa’el settlement entered their home and warned them to leave or “we’ll cut your throats.” His family found the slain body of one of their sheep next to their door, on October 11. At 11 p.m. on October 12 or 13, settlers smashed their solar panels, Abu A. said.
At 9 p.m. on October 16, five masked men, one wearing a military uniform and carrying an M16 assault rifle, arrived at Abu A.’s home, “shoved me on the ground, and the one in uniform kicked me in my stomach and hit me in the forehead with the butt of his gun.” The men punctured a water tank and warned them to leave by October 21 “or we will burn you.” Lana was hiding inside with her daughter in law and her daughters, including Anan, 8. Anan said she was very scared and “hid inside the closet and looked through the keyhole.”
Abu A.’s son, Iyad, said that on October 20, a group of uniformed Israeli forces detained him and three of his brothers. Some soldiers beat and stomped on them, and warned them to leave, as other soldiers “sat on the side,” Iyad said.
At noon on October 21, as the family was leaving with their belongings, three soldiers armed with M16s, blindfolded and zip-tied Iyad. Iyad said he was hit on the head with gun butts, taken to an outpost and then to two settlements, and finally to an army base in the Otniel settlement. He was released at 10 p.m. after Israeli police came to the settlement. A photograph taken on October 22 shows Iyad’s swollen hands and raw marks on his wrists, consistent with zip tie restraints.
Abu A., who has 11 siblings, said his family had owned 600 dunams (about 148 acres) of land in the area, where he was born in 1947. His family are now in al-Samu’a, but he could not graze his herd, forcing him to sell 100 of his sheep. He had previously sold his six cows after the Israeli military prevented him from accessing their grazing lands. “We are in debt, [and] we don’t have any income,” he said.
Three brothers from another branch of the family were forced to leave by soldiers whom residents recognized as settlers. One of the brothers, 43-year-old Ayman A., said that after October 7, settlers wearing military-uniform pants, driving a bulldozer and two cars, repeatedly threatened him, his wife and their seven children to leave “or we will burn you.”
On October 23, uniformed soldiers whom Ayman described as settlers, fired their M16s in the air and “threw us onto the ground.” He and his brothers, Mohammed and Amer, said settlers hit them and stomped on their backs. At around 9 p.m., the brothers and their families fled to al-Samu’a but had to leave behind their furniture and appliances.
Their wives and children are staying in a relative’s home in al-Samu’a, while the brothers and their older sons are staying close to a shelter they built for their 150 sheep. “It cost 8,000 shekels [US $2,100] for a bulldozer to clear the ground,” and thousands more in building materials, Ayman said. The sheep, cut off from grazing lands, need 125 kilograms of fodder each day.
Schools in the area switched to online education after October 7 due to the movement restrictions Israel imposed. Only 5 out of 23 schoolchildren in the extended family had devices or phones and were able to attend online classes, a family member said. Some schools reopened in mid-December.
Khirbet ZanutaHuman Rights Watch interviewed members of the extended S. and N. families who fled Khirbet Zanuta, in the southern West Bank, on November 1 due to settler attacks. The entire community of more than 140 people was displaced.
Saleh S., 38, and his wife and four children, ages 5 to 11, said their families had lived in Khirbet Zanuta “since our grandparents’ days.” Settlers established a nearby outpost three years ago and repeatedly harassed the community. After October 7, “they entered the house, cursing at us, harassing the children, swearing at them. It was every other day, if not in the morning, then at night,” Saleh said.
On October 7, settlers bulldozed and blocked the entrance to the road into Khirbet Zanuta from al-Dhahiriya, eight kilometers away, said Saleh’s sister, Abier, 45. In the following weeks, settlers regularly threw stones at their homes at night, hitting the metal roof. “For 10 days we weren’t able to sleep,” said Saleh’s brother Sami, 53, who lived nearby with his wife and three children, two of them under 18. Settlers smashed Saleh’s solar panels and windows and destroyed several residents’ cars.
On October 31, six armed settlers drove all-terrain vehicles to the home of Saleh’s brother Mahmoud, 42, his wife and three children, ages 2 to 9. They detained and beat him, Mahmoud said. Mahmoud said: “They were choking me, I thought they were going to kill me. They hit me with their M16s, all over, [on] my back, my arms. They cursed me and threatened my family, in Arabic and Hebrew. They threw me on the ground. There were cactus spines stuck in me.”
Click to expand Image A room under construction by families displaced after attacks by settlers and soldiers from Khirbet Zanuta, in the southern West Bank, November 23, 2023. © 2023 Bill Van Esveld/Human Rights WatchSaleh and Mahmoud said that they recognized the leader of the settlers who warned residents to leave their homes after October 7. This man had previously carried an M16 or a handgun and led settlers who cut water pipes, punctured water tanks, and used a drone to terrify the family’s sheep, Saleh and Mahmoud said. On November 1, the extended family fled. Sami said settlers armed with M16s “threw rocks at us even while we were leaving.” “We took the solar panels, the sheep, and our [kitchen] cutlery,” but had to leave everything else, said his sister, Abier. The family had to let their 100 pigeons go free. They rented three large trucks to help move their 300 sheep, at a cost of around 3,200 shekels (about US$860).
The family paid 60,000 shekels (US$16,000) to build a new sheep shelter, but without access to their lands, including four water cisterns, they cannot afford to keep the flock. The three brothers built rooms to live in, one per family, in a field near al-Dhahiriya. Saleh said, “I haven’t been able to sleep, I haven’t been able to eat. They forced a Nakba [catastrophe] on us.”
Munir and Sara N., both 38, and their nine children lived in another part of Khirbet Zanuta. At 7 a.m., a few days after October 7, settlers in two trucks, armed with assault rifles, accompanied by soldiers, beat six of Munir’s neighbors, threatening to shoot them. Settlers smashed the windows of a neighbor’s Mitsubishi truck and the windows of nearby houses.
Two days later, at 10 p.m., soldiers and settlers returned. One man threw a stun grenade inside the family home, where the children were sleeping, Sara said. Her daughter, Yara, 13, said, “The soldiers threw a sound bomb [stun grenade] close to us and I got very scared.” “The weapons terrify the younger kids, and we were afraid for their lives,” Munir said.
At midnight, several days later, eight or nine settlers arrived, accompanied by a military vehicle from which three soldiers descended. Settlers assaulted four families living nearby, beat Munir with the butts of their guns, and warned, “You have 24 hours to leave, or we’ll set fire to you.” The next day the family rented trucks at a cost of 2,100 shekels (about US$560) to move their livestock, which now shelter in an unfinished building.
After October 7, settlers also repeatedly flew drones over the family’s penned-in flock of 250 sheep, causing them to panic and trample one another, killing 10 sheep, Munir said.
“We’re all in debt,” Munir said. “If anyone would provide safety and protection for my children from settlers, we would go back [home].” On January 31, rights activists filmed settlers fencing off Khirbet Zanuta’s lands.
Sara’s children had gone to school in Khirbet Zanuta before October 7, but afterward, schools shifted to online learning, “and we don’t have internet devices.”
The school had 27 students from kindergarten to 6th grade, an education official said. It was burned in an apparent arson attack on November 20, and filmed on November 21 by a member of B’tselem, who posted photos and videos online. The school, built with humanitarian support from the EU, the UK, and other European countries, was later bulldozed.
The school’s kindergarten was subsidized and cost parents 150 shekels (about US $40) per year. Nadia, age 4, who had attended the kindergarten, said, “I saw it burned [on social media]. All of it. I got sad, and I started yelling. I used to play with doctor tools, kitchen tools, dolls, and Barbies.” Nadia’s family cannot afford the kindergarten where they are displaced, which costs 200 shekels (about US$53) per month.
School officials partnered with civil society groups to offer psycho-social support programs, a weekly health clinic, and purchased hearing aids for one student, the education official said. “The students lost so much with the loss of the school,” he said.
Ein al-RashashAll eight families living in Ein al-Rashash fled on October 13 fearing further settler violence, and Bedouin families in the area were also displaced that week due to threats, according to residents and news reports.
The Israeli military has since 2010 issued demolition orders against 73 structures in Ein al-Rashash. Settlers began harassing the community in 2014 after establishing a herding outpost, called Angels of Peace, in a former military base, led by a settler whom residents identified by his first name.
On October 8, the same men appeared in uniform, carrying M16 assault rifles, and blocked the road to the community, said Wesam W., 25. On October 11 and 12, settlers killed six Palestinians in Qusra, about 10 kilometers north of Ein al-Rashash. Fearing a deadly attack, on October 13, the entire community “decided to leave, for our safety and dignity,” said Wesam’s brother Omar, 33. Omar, his wife, and six children, walked to the nearby town of Maghayir.
On October 27, two Israeli rights activists drove Omar back to Ein al-Rashash, hoping to recover some belongings. He found that 18 tents, a car trailer, appliances, solar panels, and sheep fodder that cost 150,000 shekels (about US$40,000) were missing, he said. Seven settlers wearing civilian clothes then arrived on foot and hit and kicked them, said Wesam and one of the activists.
Community members said the Israeli police in the Binyamin settlement would not allow them to file a complaint unless they did so in person, but they declined because police had previously detained and interrogated them about false complaints by settlers.
Omar's grandparents fled to the West Bank in 1948 as refugees from what is now Israel. The family is now renting a 7-room house in Maghayir, for 35 people. They cannot graze their flock.
Tajikistan: EU States, Türkiye Should Not Return Dissidents
(Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Türkiye, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.
Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms in Tajikistan, which the Tajik government banned and designated a terrorist organization in October 2014. Tajikistan has for the last decade sought the extradition of exiled activists in other countries, some of whom also have been killed or forcibly disappeared. Host governments should not deport the people concerned to Tajikistan because of the risk of torture and should respect Tajik asylum seekers’ full due process rights, including not arbitrarily detaining them at the behest of unfounded and politically motivated requests by the Tajik government.
“Tajikistan should unequivocally end its decade-long hunt of perceived critics abroad, especially those related to Group 24 and other banned groups,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The EU and Türkiye should protect opposition activists and refrain from returning them to Tajikistan, a country known for engaging in transnational repression, where they risk being tortured.”
Human Rights Watch recently published a report on transnational repression – targeting of critics abroad by repressive governments – that includes several cases of members of Group 24, both former and active, who had fled the country only to be targeted by the Tajik government, seeking their arrest and extradition to Tajikistan on charges of terrorism or extremism-related activities. Activists in exile have also been subject to enforced disappearances or abusive use of Interpol Red Notices, which is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person because a government is seeking their extradition.
On April 5, 2024, Lithuanian security services detained Sulaimon Davlatov, a former member of Group 24, in Vilnius on charges of allegedly violating Lithuania’s national security. On April 7, a court in Vilnius ordered his pretrial detention for two months, and on April 9 the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s office told the media that Davlatov “presents a threat to the national security of Lithuania due to his cooperation with members and allies of terrorist organizations, extremist movements and propaganda of extremism.”
Davlatov has been a resident of Lithuania since he was granted asylum in 2015. Lithuanian authorities should rule out any risk that Davlatov could be extradited to Tajikistan, and in line with fair trial rights, grant Davlatov and his lawyer immediate access to any evidence they have to substantiate the allegations.
On February 23 and March 10 respectively, two senior figures in Group 24, Nasimjon Sharifov and Sukhrob Zafar, disappeared in Türkiye. Both had previously been detained by the Turkish police in March 2018 at the request of Tajik authorities and threatened with extradition but were eventually released. They had recently told family and colleagues that they were receiving regular threats from Tajik intelligence services. Neither man’s whereabouts is currently known. Friends and colleagues are concerned that they may have been forcibly disappeared by either or both Tajik and Turkish authorities and extrajudicially removed to Tajikistan.
On March 19, a court in Poland ordered Komron Khudoydodov, brother of former Group 24 activist Shabnam Khudoydodova, to leave Poland by April 19 voluntarily or be deported to Tajikistan. This followed the rejection of his application for asylum. Khudoydodov moved to Poland in 2018 on a humanitarian visa from the Polish authorities granted because he faced persecution in Tajikistan due to his sister’s peaceful political activity. In 2015, Tajik authorities had Shabnam Khudoydodova placed on the Interpol Red Notices on charges of extremism.
Tajik authorities also have an ongoing criminal investigation against Komron Khudoydodov on charges of extremism. Returning Khudoydodov to Tajikistan would place him at risk of torture or ill-treatment, and therefore be a violation of the ban on refoulement. Poland should make clear that it will abide by its international legal obligations and rule out deporting Khudoydodov to Tajikistan.
In addition to Lithuania and Poland, other European Union members, such as Austria, Germany, and Slovakia, have in recent years returned or threatened to return Tajik asylum seekers to Tajikistan despite credible evidence of their risk of being tortured. Upon their arrival in Tajikistan, those deported from the EU member states have been jailed.
The United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prohibits the expulsion, return (refoulment), or extradition of a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being tortured. The European Convention on Human Rights also incorporates this ban as an element of the prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. All EU member countries and Türkiye are party to both treaties. This principle is also incorporated into Lithuanian, Polish, and Turkish domestic law.
“EU member states and Türkiye should uphold their international human rights obligations, including not to return people at risk of torture and persecution for their political activism to their country of origin,” Sultanalieva said. “They should denounce cases of transnational repression and review any cooperation agreements with states engaged in targeting critics abroad.”
Tajikistan: EU States, Turkey Should Not Return Dissidents
(Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.
Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms in Tajikistan, which the Tajik government banned and designated a terrorist organization in October 2014. Tajikistan has for the last decade sought the extradition of exiled activists in other countries, some of whom also have been killed or forcibly disappeared. Host governments should not deport the people concerned to Tajikistan because of the risk of torture and should respect Tajik asylum seekers’ full due process rights, including not arbitrarily detaining them at the behest of unfounded and politically motivated requests by the Tajik government.
“Tajikistan should unequivocally end its decade-long hunt of perceived critics abroad, especially those related to Group 24 and other banned groups,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The EU and Turkey should protect opposition activists and refrain from returning them to Tajikistan, a country known for engaging in transnational repression, where they risk being tortured.”
Human Rights Watch recently published a report on transnational repression – targeting of critics abroad by repressive governments – that includes several cases of members of Group 24, both former and active, who had fled the country only to be targeted by the Tajik government, seeking their arrest and extradition to Tajikistan on charges of terrorism or extremism-related activities. Activists in exile have also been subject to enforced disappearances or abusive use of Interpol Red Notices, which is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person because a government is seeking their extradition.
On April 5, 2024, Lithuanian security services detained Sulaimon Davlatov, a former member of Group 24, in Vilnius on charges of allegedly violating Lithuania’s national security. On April 7, a court in Vilnius ordered his pretrial detention for two months, and on April 9 the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s office told the media that Davlatov “presents a threat to the national security of Lithuania due to his cooperation with members and allies of terrorist organizations, extremist movements and propaganda of extremism.”
Davlatov has been a resident of Lithuania since he was granted asylum in 2015. Lithuanian authorities should rule out any risk that Davlatov could be extradited to Tajikistan, and in line with fair trial rights, grant Davlatov and his lawyer immediate access to any evidence they have to substantiate the allegations.
On February 23 and March 10 respectively, two senior figures in Group 24, Nasimjon Sharifov and Sukhrob Zafar, disappeared in Turkey. Both had previously been detained by the Turkish police in March 2018 at the request of Tajik authorities and threatened with extradition but were eventually released. They had recently told family and colleagues that they were receiving regular threats from Tajik intelligence services. Neither man’s whereabouts is currently known. Friends and colleagues are concerned that they may have been forcibly disappeared by either or both Tajik and Turkish authorities and extrajudicially removed to Tajikistan.
On March 19, a court in Poland ordered Komron Khudoydodov, brother of former Group 24 activist Shabnam Khudoydodova, to leave Poland by April 19 voluntarily or be deported to Tajikistan. This followed the rejection of his application for asylum. Khudoydodov moved to Poland in 2018 on a humanitarian visa from the Polish authorities granted because he faced persecution in Tajikistan due to his sister’s peaceful political activity. In 2015, Tajik authorities had Shabnam Khudoydodova placed on the Interpol Red Notices on charges of extremism.
Tajik authorities also have an ongoing criminal investigation against Komron Khudoydodov on charges of extremism. Returning Khudoydodov to Tajikistan would place him at risk of torture or ill-treatment, and therefore be a violation of the ban on refoulement. Poland should make clear that it will abide by its international legal obligations and rule out deporting Khudoydodov to Tajikistan.
In addition to Lithuania and Poland, other European Union members, such as Austria, Germany, and Slovakia, have in recent years returned or threatened to return Tajik asylum seekers to Tajikistan despite credible evidence of their risk of being tortured. Upon their arrival in Tajikistan, those deported from the EU member states have been jailed.
The United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prohibits the expulsion, return (refoulment), or extradition of a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being tortured. The European Convention on Human Rights also incorporates this ban as an element of the prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. All EU member countries and Turkey are party to both treaties. This principle is also incorporated into Lithuanian, Polish, and Turkish domestic law.
“EU member states and Turkey should uphold their international human rights obligations, including not to return people at risk of torture and persecution for their political activism to their country of origin,” Sultanalieva said. “They should denounce cases of transnational repression and review any cooperation agreements with states engaged in targeting critics abroad.”
Tajikistan: EU States, Turkey Should Not Return Dissidents
(Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.
Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms in Tajikistan, which the Tajik government banned and designated a terrorist organization in October 2014. Tajikistan has for the last decade sought the extradition of exiled activists in other countries, some of whom also have been killed or forcibly disappeared. Host governments should not deport the people concerned to Tajikistan because of the risk of torture and should respect Tajik asylum seekers’ full due process rights, including not arbitrarily detaining them at the behest of unfounded and politically motivated requests by the Tajik government.
“Tajikistan should unequivocally end its decade-long hunt of perceived critics abroad, especially those related to Group 24 and other banned groups,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The EU and Turkey should protect opposition activists and refrain from returning them to Tajikistan, a country known for engaging in transnational repression, where they risk being tortured.”
Human Rights Watch recently published a report on transnational repression – targeting of critics abroad by repressive governments – that includes several cases of members of Group 24, both former and active, who had fled the country only to be targeted by the Tajik government, seeking their arrest and extradition to Tajikistan on charges of terrorism or extremism-related activities. Activists in exile have also been subject to enforced disappearances or abusive use of Interpol Red Notices, which is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person because a government is seeking their extradition.
On April 5, 2024, Lithuanian security services detained Sulaimon Davlatov, a former member of Group 24, in Vilnius on charges of allegedly violating Lithuania’s national security. On April 7, a court in Vilnius ordered his pretrial detention for two months, and on April 9 the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s office told the media that Davlatov “presents a threat to the national security of Lithuania due to his cooperation with members and allies of terrorist organizations, extremist movements and propaganda of extremism.”
Davlatov has been a resident of Lithuania since he was granted asylum in 2015. Lithuanian authorities should rule out any risk that Davlatov could be extradited to Tajikistan, and in line with fair trial rights, grant Davlatov and his lawyer immediate access to any evidence they have to substantiate the allegations.
On February 23 and March 10 respectively, two senior figures in Group 24, Nasimjon Sharifov and Sukhrob Zafar, disappeared in Turkey. Both had previously been detained by the Turkish police in March 2018 at the request of Tajik authorities and threatened with extradition but were eventually released. They had recently told family and colleagues that they were receiving regular threats from Tajik intelligence services. Neither man’s whereabouts is currently known. Friends and colleagues are concerned that they may have been forcibly disappeared by either or both Tajik and Turkish authorities and extrajudicially removed to Tajikistan.
On March 19, a court in Poland ordered Komron Khudoydodov, brother of former Group 24 activist Shabnam Khudoydodova, to leave Poland by April 19 voluntarily or be deported to Tajikistan. This followed the rejection of his application for asylum. Khudoydodov moved to Poland in 2018 on a humanitarian visa from the Polish authorities granted because he faced persecution in Tajikistan due to his sister’s peaceful political activity. In 2015, Tajik authorities had Shabnam Khudoydodova placed on the Interpol Red Notices on charges of extremism.
Tajik authorities also have an ongoing criminal investigation against Komron Khudoydodov on charges of extremism. Returning Khudoydodov to Tajikistan would place him at risk of torture or ill-treatment, and therefore be a violation of the ban on refoulement. Poland should make clear that it will abide by its international legal obligations and rule out deporting Khudoydodov to Tajikistan.
In addition to Lithuania and Poland, other European Union members, such as Austria, Germany, and Slovakia, have in recent years returned or threatened to return Tajik asylum seekers to Tajikistan despite credible evidence of their risk of being tortured. Upon their arrival in Tajikistan, those deported from the EU member states have been jailed.
The United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prohibits the expulsion, return (refoulment), or extradition of a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being tortured. The European Convention on Human Rights also incorporates this ban as an element of the prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. All EU member countries and Turkey are party to both treaties. This principle is also incorporated into Lithuanian, Polish, and Turkish domestic law.
“EU member states and Turkey should uphold their international human rights obligations, including not to return people at risk of torture and persecution for their political activism to their country of origin,” Sultanalieva said. “They should denounce cases of transnational repression and review any cooperation agreements with states engaged in targeting critics abroad.”
Saudi Arabia: Free Award-Winning Activist
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should immediately release Waleed Abu al-Khair, an award-winning Saudi human rights defender and lawyer, 17 human rights groups including Human Rights Watch said today, on the 10th anniversary of his arrest. He is serving a 15-year prison sentence due to his peaceful human rights activism.
“This grim anniversary of Waleed Abu al-Khair’s arrest undermines Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s hollow narrative of reform,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Waleed Abu al-Khair, along with many other of Saudi Arabia’s best and brightest citizens, remains unjustly locked up for nothing more than demanding a rights-respecting future for their country.”
The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), Saudi Arabia’s terrorism tribunal, convicted Abu al-Khair in July 2014 primarily for his comments to media outlets and tweets criticizing Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, especially the country’s harsh sentences against peaceful critics. The court also issued a 15-year travel ban and imposed a fine of 200,000 Saudi riyals (about US$53,000).
Abu al-Khair won the prestigious Human Rights Award from the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2016. He has won numerous other human rights awards as well.
“Abu al-Khair has lost 10 years of his life to the Saudi government’s repression,” Shea said. “The Saudi authorities should release him immediately.”
Justa Libertad: A Movement to Decriminalize Abortion in Ecuador
Justa Libertad, an Ecuadorian coalition of eight civil society organizations, recently filed a lawsuit before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador seeking to decriminalize abortion. This crucial initiative seeks to ensure that women, girls, and other pregnant people can access safe abortion care. It follows similar coalitions that achieved progress in other Latin American countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina.
Abortion is currently penalized in Ecuador with up to three years in prison, with exceptions for cases in which the pregnancy represents a risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or, after a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling, when the pregnancy is the result of sexual violence. Even for cases that fit these narrow exceptions, accessing abortion care remains challenging due to stigma among health personnel and other institutions that hold the belief that once pregnant, women and girls are obligated to become mothers.
Justa Libertad embodies the struggle for social justice and women’s rights in Ecuador. The denial of abortion services can violate a number of human rights, including the rights to nondiscrimination and equality; life; health; information; freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; privacy and bodily autonomy and integrity; and freedom of conscience and religion. Women, girls, and other pregnant people have the right to make decisions about their own body and their future.
Regulating abortion via criminal law perpetuates its stigma and disproportionately affects women and girls living in conditions of poverty, including Indigenous and Afro-descendant people.
Amid a movement across Latin America to achieve reproductive justice, decriminalizing abortion is an urgent matter. Ecuador should join other countries in taking this step.
Germany: Scholz Should Stand Firm on Rights in China
(Berlin) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz should stress the importance of human rights in the Sino-German relationship during his visit to China and meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Human Rights Watch said today. Scholz arrived in Beijing on April 13, 2024, and is expected to meet with Xi on April 16.
“Chancellor Scholz should not play second fiddle to Germany’s narrow business interests, but should lead by setting the Sino-German relationship on a rights-respecting footing,” said Wenzel Michalski, Germany director at Human Rights Watch. “Promoting human rights is good both for the Chinese people and for Germany’s long-term interests.”
Scholz last visited Beijing in November 2022, when he also brought along a large business delegation. Since then, Germany has issued a new China strategy in which it commits to responding to an increasingly assertive and abusive Chinese government by “de-risking," or reducing reliance on China for critical supply chains. The strategy also asserts that “[h]uman rights are at the heart of” German government policies toward China.
In an April 12 letter to the German chancellor, Human Rights Watch urged Scholz to make clear to Xi that the Sino-German relationship will suffer if Beijing does not address serious human rights violations in China. These include ending its crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang and freeing the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs arbitrarily detained or imprisoned, including Rahile Dawut, a prominent expert on ethnography, and Ilham Tohti, Uyghur scholar and Sakharov Prize laureate.
Beijing should also revoke the two draconian national security laws in Hong Kong and release those wrongfully detained in mainland China, including human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan.
In a 2022 public opinion poll in Germany, 68 percent of those who responded said that is it important for Germany to stand up for human rights when dealing with China.
“Scholz needs to put Germany’s China strategy into action by forthrightly putting human rights at the center of the Sino-German relationship,” Michalski said. “The German government should demonstrate its commitment by impressing upon Chinese leaders its principled and public support for the human rights of everyone in China.”
Abu Ghraib Torture Case Finally Goes to Trial
Twenty years have passed since the media broke the story that US forces and the CIA were torturing “war on terror” detainees at Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq. But for the men who were tortured, it feels like only yesterday. The physical and mental scars they carry serve as daily reminders of the abuse they suffered.
Still, several of these men told me they hold out hope that the US government will apologize and give them the redress they deserve.
On April 15, a federal court in Virginia will hear the case of Al Shimari et al. v. CACI, a lawsuit brought by the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of three Iraqi torture victims. The suit asserts that CACI, a private security company which the US government hired in 2003 to interrogate prisoners in Iraq, directed and participated in torture and other abuse at Abu Ghraib. The men are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
CACI has tried to have the case dismissed 20 times since it was first filed in 2008.
Al Shimari et al. v. CACI was only able to advance because it targeted a military contractor. US courts have repeatedly dismissed similar cases against the federal government because of a 1946 law that preserves US forces’ immunity for claims that arise during war.
What’s more, the US government hasn’t created any official compensation program or other avenues for redress for those who allege they were tortured or abused. Nor are there any pathways available to have their cases heard.
This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few. For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim. The US Government should do the right thing: take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years.
Brazil: Reject Bill That Entrenches Failed Drug Policy
(São Paulo) – Brazil’s Congress should reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would entrench the criminalization of drug possession for personal use.
The Senate is expected to vote in the coming days on an amendment to article 5 of Brazil’s Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy, that would restrict that right by criminalizing the possession of illegal drugs regardless of quantity. If approved, the proposed amendment would be put to a second vote at the full Senate and then go to the Chamber of Deputies.
“Decades of drug policy failure in Brazil should make clear that criminal law is simply ineffective to address the harmful use of drugs and leads to serious human rights abuses,” said Andrea Carvalho, Brazil researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of cementing a failed policy in the constitution, lawmakers should follow the example of many other countries by decriminalizing the possession of drugs for personal use and developing effective health strategies to prevent and respond to problematic substance use.”
Current law already criminalizes drug possession for personal use, but introducing this language in the constitution would make it much harder to pursue much-needed drug policy reforms in Brazil, Human Rights Watch said.
The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, has made clear that the constitutional amendment is a pre-emptive attempt by lawmakers to counter an upcoming Supreme Court decision that could improve drug policy, Human Rights Watch said. Pacheco introduced the proposal on September 14, 2023, a few weeks after the Supreme Court resumed its review of a case that will decide whether current Brazilian law violates the Constitution. Upon introducing the bill, Pacheco stressed that it is Congress that “defines the laws in the country” and other branches of government should recognize that authority.
In March 2024, after the Supreme Court picked up the case again after a pause, Pacheco said that “what motivated” his proposed amendment was a possible ruling by the court to declare the current law unconstitutional. He contended that if the court decriminalized drug use, it would be “invading the jurisdiction” of Congress, as “it is up to the Parliament to decide whether something should be a crime or not.” About a week later, a key congressional committee moved quickly and approved the proposal, which is now being reviewed by the full Senate.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has the authority to strike down a law if it violates the constitution. In this case, it is assessing whether the current law violates fundamental rights. So far, five Supreme Court justices have voted in favor of decriminalizing the use of marijuana and three have voted against. Three other justices have yet to vote. If one of them votes in favor, a Supreme Court majority will have supported decriminalizing marijuana for personal use.
While the current law considers drug possession for personal use a crime, its sanctions do not include prison sentences but instead warnings, community service, or attending educational programs. Yet, having a criminal record subjects a person to discrimination and stigma that can lead to exclusion from jobs, housing, and other opportunities.
Some Supreme Court justices have proposed establishing a threshold quantity of marijuana to differentiate users from dealers. The current law does not determine this threshold, which leaves the assessment of who is a user and who is a dealer at the discretion of the police and the justice system. That opens the door to the discriminatory application of the law.
The proposed constitutional amendment could worsen the problem by entrenching in the constitution that users would be differentiated from dealers by “factual circumstances,” a vague provision that would be open to abuse.
While Black people make up about 57 percent of Brazil’s population, they are 68 percent of the defendants prosecuted for drug offenses. A 2023 study by a research institution linked to the government that examined the decisions in drug cases against 41,000 defendants in the first half of 2019 concluded that “the judicial processing of drug crimes punishes, as a priority, Black, young, and poorly educated people who possess small amounts of drugs.”
The lack of a legal distinction between users and dealers based on clearly-defined parameters has contributed to the explosive rise of Brazil’s prison population in the last two decades. In 2005, the year before Brazil’s drug law came to force, only 9 percent of those in prison were detained on drug charges, compared with the current 28 percent; among women, it is 51 percent.
In addition, Brazilian police regularly use drug law enforcement as a justification for raids into low-income neighborhoods that routinely end in killings. Police have killed more than 6,000 people per year since 2018, the vast majority of them Black.
In Brazil’s prisons, where criminal groups exploit appalling conditions to recruit new members, people who use drugs who have been wrongfully detained and tried as dealers, and small-scale dealers can be forced to seek the protection of the very criminal organizations the law is intended to fight. More broadly, drug prohibition creates an enormous source of wealth for organized crime, fueling corruption and violence.
Rather than criminalizing people who use drugs, authorities should focus on dismantling organized crime groups and the corrupt networks that support them, as well as ensuring accountability for serious violence. Governments should also explore alternatives to prohibition that are less reliant on criminalization and more focused on different forms of regulation and control.
Human Rights Watch research around the world has found that criminalizing the possession of drugs for personal use is inconsistent with the rights to autonomy and privacy, as well as the basic principle of proportionality in punishment. These principles are broadly recognized under international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, both ratified by Brazil.
Criminalization also undermines the right to health. Fear of criminal penalties deters people who use drugs from using health services and treatment and increases their risk of suffering violence, discrimination, and serious illness. Criminal prohibitions have also impeded the use of drugs for legitimate medical research and have prevented patients from accessing drugs for palliative care and pain treatment.
The authorities should rely on non-penal regulatory and public health approaches to address problematic drug use, Human Rights Watch said.
Governments should not punish someone simply for using drugs when they aren’t harming others. To protect third parties from associated harm, such as driving under the influence, the authorities may impose, consistent with human rights principles, proportionate criminal penalties on behavior that causes or seriously risks harm to others, in conjunction with drug use.
“The personal use of drugs should be treated as an aspect of privacy and personal autonomy,” Carvalho said. “Lawmakers who want to address problematic drug use should heed international evidence that shows that decriminalization of consumption, combined with meaningful access to voluntary evidence-based treatment and other supports for people who are struggling, protects and promotes health much more effectively than the revolving door of criminalization.”
Sudan: One Year of Atrocities Requires New Global Approach
(Nairobi) – As global and regional leaders meet in Paris to spotlight Sudan and mark the one-year anniversary of the country’s brutal conflict between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), they should make clear that those responsible for ongoing atrocities and other violations of international humanitarian law will be held to account, Human Rights Watch said today. This includes widespread intentional killings of civilians, unlawful attacks on civilian infrastructure, as well as the deliberate looting of aid, which constitute war crimes.
On April 15, France alongside Germany and the European Union are cohosting a conference on Sudan to press for an end to the fighting and for a significant uptick in global funding for the grossly under-resourced response as a hunger and broader humanitarian crisis unravels in the country and in refugee hosting countries.
“The warring parties in Sudan have inflicted tremendous suffering on Sudanese from all walks of life. The global response to Sudan’s brutal conflict needs to change,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch.“Leaders meeting in Paris should act to tackle the shamefully low levels of humanitarian funding, including for local responders, and commit to concrete measures against those deliberately hampering aid delivery to populations in need.”
The conference comes a year after conflict broke out between the SAF and RSF in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, before spreading to other regions including Darfur and central Sudan. Despite the magnitude of suffering and violations by the warring parties, the situation in Sudan has received an underwhelming response from the international community.
Almost 15,000 people are known to have been killed since then, almost certainly an underestimate. The conflict has uprooted 8.5 million people, most internally, making Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis. Around 1.76 million people have fled into neighboring countries.Without significant humanitarian assistance, five million people could risk starvation in the coming months.
Both warring parties have committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, amounting in some cases to war crimes and other atrocity crimes, Human Rights Watch said. The SAF have unlawfully killed civilians, carried out airstrikes that have deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, and repeatedly obstructed humanitarian aid among other violations. The RSF has carried out widespread civilian killings, many of which appear to be ethnically targeted notably in West Darfur, while also hampering aid including by widespread looting of humanitarian supplies. They have used heavy explosive weapons in densely populated areas and engaged in widespread sexual violence and pillage. Both forces and their allies have recruited children and arbitrarily detained civilians.
According to the UN, approximately 25 million people, around half of the population, are now dependent on emergency food supplies, which SAF has deliberately restricted and RSF looted, in clear violation of international law, and in acts that could amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch interviews with aid workers described how authorities affiliated with SAF including its military intelligence have imposed a multitude of arbitrary bureaucratic restrictions that have hampered the work of humanitarian organizations and their ability to reach those in need. These include delays, denials, and nonresponse to requests for visas and travel permits, which the authorities require for aid personnel to move between federal states, as well as the imposition of excessive administrative procedures for importing and transporting relief materials. SAF’s unlawful obstruction of aid follows decades of hostility and routine obstruction towards international relief agencies under Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir, adding to the suffering of populations in conflict areas.
Rapid Support Forces and allied militias have repeatedly attacked and looted aid supplies and humanitarian infrastructure notably warehouses, such as the stocks in a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in Wad Madani in December 2023. “This attack – in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces – affected supplies that could have fed 1.5 million acutely food-insecure people for one whole month,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Communities in Darfur have also more recently accused the RSF of looting food supplies destined for displaced persons camps. The Darfur Network for Human Rights (DNHR), a rights monitoring group, said in an April 3 statement that RSF and Arab fighters looted aid supplies including food items for malnourished children from residents of an IDP camp in central Darfur.
Both parties, particularly SAF, have sought to restrict aid going to and through the opposing parties’ areas of control, which has put Khartoum under a de facto blockade since late 2023 and also hampered aid access in Darfur.
A local responder from Bahri city in Khartoum, said: “SAF is preventing any supplies entering the city and RSF is restricting movements within. We are forced to smuggle goods in including food, increasing prices of commodities as a result.”
WFP said on April 3 that it had managed to reach the Karrari locality in Omdurman, which is currently under SAF control, for the first time since December.
On March 6, Sudanese authorities informed the UN that they would only allow cross-border movement through specific crossings under the control of forces allied to the military, adding more financial and logistical challenges for humanitarian organizations.
On March 21, the RSF had released a statement on their official X (formerly known as Twitter) account saying they would not allow aid from Port Sudan to reach El Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, saying this plan will be used for rearmament purposes by SAF and their allies.
Warring parties killed, injured, and detained dozens of aid workers and targeted humanitarian convoys. In December, SAF attacked a convoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which included civilians to be evacuated, killing two people and injuring seven including three ICRC staff. SAF said following the incident that ICRC had diverted from the agreed route and that they were escorted by RSF vehicles.
Given the blocks on the international aid response, Sudanese responders, many of whom volunteer in the country’s emergency rooms, have borne the brunt of seeking to meet civilians’ growing needs in Khartoum, Darfur, Al Gezira, and elsewhere. Both sides in the conflict have harassed, detained, and otherwise abused local responders. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in February said that both SAF and RSF were arbitrarily detaining thousands of civilians and had subjected hundreds to enforced disappearances including members of the emergency response rooms. Human Rights Watch has also documented RSF and SAF arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of emergency responders and healthcare workers in Khartoum.
The warring parties’ blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law has caused the current humanitarian nightmare and left civilians in areas hit particularly hard by the fighting, notably Khartoum and its sister cities and large parts of Darfur, reeling and unable to access basic necessities.
Warring parties’ attacks, including of infrastructure such as healthcare facilities and water treatment plants, have made civilian lives precarious and insecure. Since the conflict’s onset, SAF forces have bombed and both parties have shelled health facilities, while the RSF has repeatedly occupied hospitals. The attacks on healthcare, many deliberate, have left 70-80 percent of healthcare facilities non-functional notably in Khartoum and Darfur. Even those deemed functional face massive challenges, due to lack of electricity, staffing and medical supplies including life-saving medication. “We cannot say there is a functioning health sector,” an international healthcare worker told Human Rights Watch in February. Warring parties’ relentless fighting in residential areas of Greater Khartoum, including using weaponry that frequently results in indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war, over the course of the last year has also prevented the safe movement of civilians and local responders.
In May 2023, both parties committed to uphold international humanitarian law and allow aid delivery during talks hosted in Jeddah by Saudi Arabia and the United States and later joined by the African Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). With reports of a resumption of the Jeddah talks, the hosts should press for the establishment of a mechanism that will monitor implementation of the commitments to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law and protect civilians, including calling out attacks on and deliberate obstruction of humanitarian assistance and unlawful destruction of civilian infrastructure.
UN Security Council and African Union Peace and Security Council member states should maintain scrutiny over the food security situation, by holding regular public briefings over the next six months.
The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union and other countries should coordinate action under their respective sanction regimes on Sudan and urgently designate entities and individuals responsible for aid obstruction and other grave violations.
Governments meeting in Paris should also actively and publicly support efforts to investigate ongoing abuses on the ground, Human Rights Watch said. The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced in July 2023 that it is investigating recent crimes committed in Darfur as part of his office’s ongoing Darfur investigations. The independent international fact-finding mission on Sudan, established by the UN Human Rights Council in October, and mandated to investigate violations across Sudan, including in Khartoum and Darfur, should be given full support and access, and be renewed as needed until investigations are complete.
“The world should be ashamed by the horrific cost of its inaction. Civilians in Sudan deserve to see a robust, concerted global response,” said Osman. “The Paris conference should not be where the focus on Sudan ends, but rather jumpstart a new approach, announcing major increases in humanitarian funding, including for local responders, and spelling out clear benchmarks and concrete measures states will take to end the weaponization of aid by both warring parties.”
Belarus Calls LGBT Lives ‘Pornography’
Belarus has hit a new low in its targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. As of today, the definition of pornography under Belarusian law will include depictions of same-sex relationships as well as transgender people.
The Culture Ministry recently amended its decree on “erotic materials” to classify “homosexualism, lesbian love” and the “desire to live and be seen by others as a person of an opposite sex”—a reference to transgender people—as “non-traditional sexual relationship or behavior.” This places depictions of LGBT people alongside those of necrophilia, pedophilia, and voyeurism, all of which legally constitute “non-traditional relationships.”
Under Belarusian law, they all may also constitute pornography.
Public displays of pornography are punishable in Belarus with up to four years in prison. Child pornography is punishable with up to 13 years behind bars.
While it is not yet clear what kinds of depictions of LGBT people could fall under the new definition of pornography, it clearly aims to assault the dignity of sexual and gender minorities, people already demonized and at risk of persecution in Belarus.
Belarusian public officials and religious groups periodically advocate for introducing administrative and criminal liability for “non-traditional sexual relationship and gender change propaganda.” Neighboring Russia recently expanded its anti-gay propaganda law and banned the “international LGBT movement” as extremist.
In 2020, police arrested numerous peaceful protesters who demonstrated against the rigged presidential elections. Belarusian rights groups documented the systematic and widespread ill-treatment and torture of the protesters, reporting that people perceived as LGBT faced an increased risk of police violence and threats of sexualized violence.
Since then, Belarusian authorities have used public humiliation as a shaming tool against critics who are perceived to be or are LGBT. In one such instance, police forced a detainee, arrested for leaving a critical comment online, to “confess” on camera to being gay. At the end of the horrific video, he said: “I understand this is immoral, I promise to correct it.”
In their brutal assault against civil society in recent years, Belarusian authorities shut down all human rights organizations, including LGBT rights groups, leaving LGBT people with even less protection.
Belarus should annul these despicable amendments and stop cynically targeting LGBT people.
Germany: Landmark Vote for Trans Rights Law
(Berlin, April 12, 2024) – Germany’s parliament on April 12, 2024, passed a landmark law that allows transgender and non-binary people to modify their legal documents to reflect their gender identity through an administrative procedure based on self-identification, Human Rights Watch said today. The law will take effect in August 2024.
The new law replaces Germany’s outdated 1980 Transsexuals Law (Transsexuellengesetz), which requires trans people to provide a local court with two “expert reports” attesting to “a high degree of probability” that the applicant will not want to revert to their previous legal gender. The German Constitutional Court had previously struck down other draconian aspects of the law, including surgical requirements for gender recognition.
“Germany has joined a growing list of countries that are abolishing pathologizing requirements for gender recognition, which have no place in diverse and democratic societies,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “As populist politicians in Europe and beyond try to use trans rights as a political wedge issue, Germany’s new law sends a strong message that trans people exist and deserve recognition and protection, without discrimination.”
Under the new law, trans and non-binary people will be able to go to a civil registry office and have their gender marker and their given names changed through a simple declaration. No “expert” opinions or medical certificates will be required. The applicant will be able to choose from several gender markers – male, female, or “diverse” – or opt not to enter a gender at all.
According to a 2017 report from the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, under the Transsexuals Law, applicants said that to secure the necessary “expert” reports, they had to disclose immaterial details from their childhood and their sexual past, and even undergo physical examinations. The ministry found that the legal procedure could take up 20 months and cost an average of €1,868 (about. US$2,000).
The gender recognition reform comes as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists warn of an uptick in anti-LGBT violence in Germany. The federal interior minister said in June 2023 that in the preceding year the police registered over 1,400 hate crimes against LGBT people. Several attacks occurred at Pride parades in recent years, one of which ended in the death of a trans man in 2022.
In May 2023, the federal human rights commissioner expressed worries about setbacks for LGBT rights. In June 2023, state-level interior ministers committed to strengthening their prevention of anti-LGBT hate crimes and violence, including through law enforcement training and the introduction of designated contact people at police stations throughout Germany.
Legal gender recognition reform based on self-declaration will not in itself ensure protection for trans people in Germany from abuse and discrimination. But the new law indicates that the government supports trans and non-binary people’s fundamental rights, which contributes to a broader understanding and acceptance of diverse gender identities, Human Rights Watch said.
A growing number of countries have removed burdensome requirements for legal gender recognition, including medical or psychological evaluation. Countries including Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay provide for simple administrative legal gender recognition processes based on self-declaration.
The move toward such straightforward administrative procedures reflects international medical consensus and human rights standards. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an interdisciplinary professional association with members worldwide, has found that medical and other barriers to gender recognition for transgender people, including diagnostic requirements, “may harm physical and mental health.” The most recent International Classification of Diseases, the World Health Organization’s global diagnostic manual, formally depathologizes trans identities.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Germany is a party, provides for equal civil and political rights for all, everyone’s right to recognition before the law, and the right to privacy. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in charge of interpreting the ICCPR, has called on governments to guarantee the rights of transgender people, including the right to legal recognition of their gender, and for countries to repeal abusive and disproportionate requirements for legal recognition of gender identity.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in Goodwin v. United Kingdom that the “conflict between social reality and law” that arises when the government does not recognize a person’s gender identity constitutes a “serious interference with private life.” Since then, the court has ruled that various abusive requirements for gender recognition, like sterilization and other medical interventions, violate trans people’s human rights.
The European Union’s LGBTIQ Equality Strategy (2020-2025) also upholds “accessible legal gender recognition based on self-determination and without age restriction” as the human rights standard in the member bloc.
Principle three of the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity affirms that each person’s self-defined gender identity “is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity, and freedom.”
As a member of the Equal Rights Coalition, the Global Equality Fund, and the UN LGBTI Core Group, Germany plays a key role in advocating for LGBT and intersex (LGBTI) rights beyond its borders. In March 2021, the federal government pledged to do more through a LGBTI Inclusion Strategy, which, among its many goals, aims to further Germany’s role in promoting LGBTI people’s rights at international and regional human rights institutions.
“Germany’s gender recognition reform removes a stain on its national human rights record and bolsters its commitments to LGBT rights at home and abroad,” González said. “Following this critical reform to legal gender recognition, German authorities should continue to push for full equality, to eliminate acts of anti-LGBT violence in Germany and to promote anti-LGBT legislation overseas.”
Germany’s Antisemitism Battle Needs Focus on Education
In early February, a 30-year-old Jewish student was hospitalized following an attack by a fellow student at Berlin’s largest public university, Freie Universität Berlin.
Berlin’s authorities treated the attack as politically motivated antisemitic violence and attributed it to the impact in Europe of the escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In response to the attack, Germany’s antisemitism commissioner demanded a clear stance against antisemitism from the university leadership.
Berlin has a dedicated general commissioner on antisemitism at the state level as well as within its state police and prosecution office, with the latter two focused on the criminal justice response to antisemitism. They are in regular contact with Jewish communities and groups.
In March, Human Rights Watch met with Winfrid Wenzel, antisemitism commissioner for the Berlin Police Department. His role is to liaise with police officers to ensure effective recognition and recording of antisemitic crimes. He also works to build trust among Jewish communities in the police force.
Wenzel shared information showing that in 2023, police recorded 72 acts of antisemitic violence in Berlin. The frequency of antisemitic violence suggests policing can’t be the sole answer to hate crimes.
International guidelines have demonstrated the critical role education plays in countering the bias and prejudice that underlies antisemitism. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance highlights the need for educational institutions to be equipped to respond effectively to antisemitic attacks and promote an understanding of antisemitism among students. The German government’s Strategy against Antisemitism and for Jewish Life also highlighted education as a “lifelong goal” to prevent antisemitism.
Last month, Berlin’s state government reacted to the violence, threats, and intimidation faced by Jewish students on campuses with assurances that it was in “intense communication” with universities to guarantee the safety of Jewish students. As of April 1, when the new semester began, universities in Berlin have been asked to strengthen their security protocols relating to antisemitic incidents to ensure students are better supported.
Freie Universität Berlin decided to ban the alleged perpetrator of the attack from campus for a preliminary three-month period; but there is broader work that must be done by German universities to build trust among Jewish students and assure them of their safety. In addition to appointing a contact person on antisemitism, universities should actively raise awareness about antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on campus and create inclusive and open platforms for dialogue and mutual learning.
Mali: Junta Suspends Political Parties, Associations
(Nairobi) – Mali’s transitional military government should immediately reverse its suspension of political parties and associations, Human Rights Watch said today. The suspension violates both Malian law and the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly under international human rights law.
On April 10, 2024, the council of ministers adopted a decree suspending the activities of political parties and associations across the country “until further notice.” On April 11, the Malian communications regulatory body (Haute autorité de la communication) directed all media to stop “broadcasting and publishing the activities” of political parties and associations. The action appeared to be in response to the March 31 call by more than 80 political parties and associations for a return to constitutional order by holding presidential elections as soon as possible. The military junta, which seized power in a coup in May 2021, had announced in September that the elections scheduled for March 26 would be delayed indefinitely for technical reasons.
“The Malian authorities apparently suspended all political parties and associations because they didn’t like their call to hold democratic elections,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Mali’s junta, like all governments, needs to respect human rights, and should immediately lift the suspension.”
Following months of renewed hostilities between separatist armed groups and Malian forces in the northern part of the country, Col. Assimi Goita, Mali’s military president, announced on December 31, 2023, the establishment of an “inter-Malian dialogue for peace and reconciliation,” aimed at eliminating “the roots of community and intercommunity conflicts” by prioritizing “national ownership of the peace process.” In an April 10 news release, Col. Abdoulaye Maïga, the minister of territorial administration, claimed the suspension of political parties and associations was justified to ensure that the inter-Malian dialogue “[would] take place in a climate of serenity and not cacophony.”
“The minister’s declaration has contradictions,” said a member of the political party African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence (Solidarité africaine pour la démocratie et l'indépendance, SADI). “Authorities are inviting people to the national dialogue, and at the same time are stripping them of their political clothes. … Who do they [authorities] want to attend the dialogue? People should be entitled to participate both as citizens and as political leaders or members of political parties.”
In January, the authorities took legal action against the SADI party, threatening to dissolve it, following a message posted on social networks by its leader, Oumar Mariko. Mariko had alleged that the Malian armed forces had committed war crimes against members of the Strategic Permanent Framework (Cadre stratégique permanent), a coalition of armed and political groups from northern Mali.
Since the military coup, Mali’s junta has increasingly cracked down on peaceful dissent, political opposition, civil society, and the media, shrinking the country’s civic space, Human Rights Watch said.
On March 13, the minister of territorial administration dissolved the Association of Pupils and Students of Mali (L’Association des élèves et étudiants du Mali) accusing its members of “violence and clashes in schools and universities.” The association was the fourth organization that the government dissolved in less than four months. On March 6, the authorities had dissolved the Coordination of Movements, Associations, and Sympathizers of Imam Mahmoud Dicko (Coordination des mouvements, associations et sympathisants de l’imam Mahmoud Dicko), which had been calling for presidential elections as part of restoring civilian democratic rule, accusing it of “destabilization and threat to public security.”
On February 28, the authorities had dissolved the political organization Kaoural Renewal (Kaoural Renouveau), citing “defamatory and subversive remarks” against the military junta. And on December 20, the authorities had dissolved the Observatory for Elections and Good Governance (Observatoire pour les élections et la bonne gouvernance), a civil society group that monitored the fairness of elections, accusing its chairman of “statements likely to disturb public order.”
The junta has also targeted dissidents and whistleblowers. On March 4, the authorities forcibly disappeared gendarmerie Col. Alpha Yaya Sangaré, who had recently published a book about abuses by the Malian armed forces. His whereabouts remain unknown.
A Malian human rights activist said that “the authorities want to maintain a monopoly over political power by denying opponents the right to express their views and conduct political activities.”
Mali’s constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Mali ratified in 1974, protect the rights to freedom of association, expression, and peaceful assembly. Article 25 of the ICCPR ensures the right of citizens to participate in public affairs. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitor state compliance with the convention, has upheld everyone’s right to “join organizations and associations concerned with political and public affairs.”
“The junta’s decision to suspend political parties is part of its relentless crackdown on peaceful opposition and dissent,” Allegrozzi said. “The authorities should immediately lift the suspension, allow the political parties and associations to operate freely, and commit to upholding fundamental rights and freedoms.”